Characterization of UWB Channel Impulse Responses Within the Passenger Cabin of a Boeing 737-200 Aircraft

With its confined volume, cylindrical structure and high density of seating, the passenger cabin of a typical midsize airliner is significantly different from the residential, office, outdoor and industrial environments previously considered by IEEE 802.15.4a. We have characterized the shape of the ultrawideband (UWB) channel impulse response (CIR) and the fading statistics experienced by individual multipath components (MPCs) within that environment based upon 3300 complex frequency responses that we measured over the range 3.1-10.6 GHz at various locations aboard a Boeing 737-200 aircraft. We found that: (1) the shape of the CIR generally follows IEEE 802.15.4a´s dense single-cluster model, but with negligible rise time if the link is line-of-sight, (2) both the mean and variance of the exponential decay constant tend to increase with transmitter-receiver separation and also as the receiving antenna drops from the headrest to the footrest of the passenger seats, and (3) small-scale fading of individual MPCs at each measurement location within the aircraft tends to follow a Nakagami distribution with a lognormally-distributed m-parameter that has a mean value of 0.2 dB and a standard deviation of 1.1 dB. We have modified IEEE 802.15.4a´s CIR simulator to generate responses similar to those seen in the cabin.